James I

JAMES I. king of Scotland and poet, son of Robert III. and Annabella Drummond of Stobhall, was born at Dunfermline in July 1394. Robert, suspecting Robert, duke of Albany, of complicity in the mysterious death of his elder son David, sent James to France for safety in 1406. He was captured on the journey by English sailors, and imprisoned by Henry IV., who refused ransom. Shortly after the accession of Henry V. in 1413 James was taken to Windsor, where he was treated with great kindness by the king. He was given capable tutors, devoted much time to study, and became a poet of some repute. It is evident from his subsequent career that he made a thorough study of jurisprudence. In person he was short and stout, but well proportioned and very agile, and he excelled in all forms of He also showed proficiency in music and singing.

Robert of Albany had been virtual ruler of Scotland for some years, as Robert III. was an invalid, and on the king's death in 1406 he made no attempt to obtain the release of James, who became nominally king. In 1420 Henry V. took James on his French campaign, but failed in his intention of detaching the Scotch auxiliaries from the French standard. James returned to England after Henry's death in 1422. About this time, Robert of Albany having died in 1419, negotiations were begun for James's release, and a Scottish commission was appointed to treat with England. In Sept. 1423, in a treaty signed at York, Scotland undertook to pay 6o,000 marks for his "maintenance in England," and agreed to his marriage with a "high-born English lady," Jane, daughter of John Beaufort, earl of Somerset. It is doubtful whether The Kingis Quair (see below) was addressed to her or not. Ten thousand marks of his ransom were remitted as Jane's dowry, and they were married at Southwark on Feb. 12, entering Scotland in April. James was crowned at Scone on May 21, James Us reign is noteworthy for the introduction of a system of statute law, modelled to some extent on that of England. An attempt was also made to institute social legis lation. He thought the independence of the nobles was harmful to the country, and tried to weaken their power by increasing the power of parliament. To this end he used more violent meas ures. Albany's son, Sir Walter Stewart, and brother-in-law. Malcolm Fleming, were arrested in the first months of James' reign and, later, Duncan, earl of Lennox. Although James allowed the second duke of Albany, as earl of Fife, to crown him, Albany and his son Alexander were arrested in March 1425 at a parlia ment in Perth. They were executed on May 26-27 with Sir Wal ter Stewart and Malcolm Fleming. At Inverness in 1427 many other turbulent northern chiefs were arrested, but while order was to some extent restored, a spirit of rebellion was aroused which eventually cost James his life. Just before Christmas 1436, in spite of a warning of danger, he went to Perth, where he was the victim of a dynastic conspiracy by Walter Stewart, earl of Atholl, whose ultimate hope of the throne had been destroyed by the birth of a son to James. Sir Robert Graham (who had been imprisoned by James and subsequently banished), instigated by Atholl, burst into the king's presence on Feb. 20, 1437, and stabbed him to death. Graham and Atholl were afterwards tor tured and executed.

James had two sons : Alexander, who died young, and James II., who succeeded to the throne; and six daughters, among them being Margaret, the queen of Louis XI. of France. His widow, Jane, married Sir James Stewart, the "black knight of Lorne," and died on July 15, During the latter part of James's reign difficulties arose with England and also with the papacy. Part of the king's ransom was still owing to England; other causes of discord between the two nations existed, and in 1435 the earl of Mar defeated an invading English force at Piperden. In ecclesiastical matters James showed himself merciless towards heretics, but his desire to reform the Scottish Church and to make it less dependent on Rome brought him into collision with Popes Martin V. and Eugenius IV.

James was the author of two poems,

The Kingis Quair and Good Counsel (a short piece of three stanzas). The Song of Absence, Peblis to the Play and Christis Kirk on the Greene have been ascribed to him without conclusive evidence. The Kingis

Quair (preserved in the Selden MS. B. 24 in the Bodleian) is an allegorical poem of the tour d'amour type. Its language is an artificial blend of northern and southern (Chaucerian) forms, of the type shown in Lancelot of the Laik and the Quair of Jelusy.

authorities: Andrew of Wyntou

n, The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, ed. D. Laing (Edinburgh, 1872 1879) ; Walter Bower's continuation of John of Fordun's Scotichroni con, ed. T. Hearne (Oxford, 1722). See also J. Pinkerton, History of Scotland (1797) ; A. Lang, History of Scotland, vol. i. (1900) ; and G. Burnett, Introduction to the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1878-1901). The Kingis Quair was first printed in the Poetical Remains of James the First, edited by William Tytler (1783). Later editions are Morison's reprint (Perth, 1786) ; J. Sibbald's, in his Chronicle of Scot tish Poetry (1802, vol. i.) ; Thomson's in 1815 and 1824 ; G. Chalmers's, in his Poetic Remains of some of the Scottish Kings (1824) ; Rogers's Poetical Remains of King James the First (1873) ; Skeat's edition pub lished by the Scottish Text Society (1884). J. T. T. Brown's argu ments against James's authorship of the poem The Authorship of the Kingis Quair (Glasgow, 1896) have been answered by Jusserand in his Jacques Icr d'Ecosse fut-il poete? Etude sur l'authenticite du cahier du roi (1897, reprinted from the Revue historique, vol. lxiv .) . See also the full correspondence in the Athenaeum (July-Aug. 1896 and Dec. 1899) ; W. A. Neilson, Origins and Sources of the Court of Love (Bos ton, 1899), pp. 152, etc., 235, etc. ; and Gregory Smith, Transition Period (1900), PP. 40, 41.

JAMES H. (1430-146o), king of Scotland, the only surviving son of James I., was born on October 16, 143o. Crowned king at Holyrood in March 1437, shortly after the murder of his father, he was at first under the guardianship of his mother. Archibald, 5th earl of Douglas, was regent of the kingdom, and considerable power was possessed by Sir Alexander Livingstone and Sir William Crichton (d. 1454). When in 1439 Queen Jane was married to Sir James Stewart, the knight of Lorne, Living stone obtained the custody of the young king (Sept. 4, whose minority was marked by fierce hostility between the Doug lases and the Crichtons, with Livingstone first on one side and then on the other. About 1443 the royal cause was espoused by William, 8th earl of Douglas, who attacked Crichton in the king's name, and civil war lasted until about 1446. In July James was married to Mary (d. 1463), daughter of Arnold, duke of Gelderland, and undertook the government himself ; and in 1450 Livingstone was arrested and executed. In 5452 the king heard of the earl of Douglas's attempt to conspire with Crawford against him. The earl was invited to Stirling by the king, and, after being charged with treachery, stabbed by James and killed by attendants. Civil war broke out at once between James and the Douglases, which ended in the attainder of James, the new earl of Douglas, and the forfeiture of his lands. Fortified by this success and assured of the support of the parliament and of the nobles, James could view without alarm the war which had broken out with England. After two expeditions across the borders, a truce was made in July 1457. During the Wars of the Roses he showed his sympathy with the Lancastrian party after the defeat of Henry VI. at Northampton by attacking the English possessions to the south of Scotland. While conducting the siege of Roxburgh Castle James was killed, through the bursting of a cannon, on Aug. 3, 1460. He left three sons, his successor, James III., Alex ander Stewart, duke of Albany, and John Stewart, earl of Mar (d. 1479); and two daughters. His reign is a period of some im portance in the legislative history of Scotland, as measures were passed with regard to the tenure of land, the reformation of the coinage, and the protection of the poor, while the organization for the administration of justice was greatly improved.